


Pieced Together

by zorac



Series: Life in Pieces [4]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game), Life Is Strange: Before The Storm (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Save Arcadia Bay Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-10-08 19:54:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17392679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zorac/pseuds/zorac
Summary: Twenty-five years after they were murdered, Rachel Amber and Chloe Price still live on in the memories of the people who knew and cared about them.But... what if was more than just that?This is a standalone story, albeit with major spoilers for the earlier fics in the series.





	1. Death is Only the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, as promised, is the last story in the _Life in Pieces_ series – don't worry if you haven't read the earlier entries; there are a couple of characters who need to be brought up to speed as well. I'm hoping to post new chapters every other weekend; expect time jumps between them. The 'E' rating is for smut in later chapter(s).

###### Chloe

“Being together this week… it was the best farewell gift I could have hoped for,” I say, almost shouting to be heard over the noise of the storm. “You’re my hero, Max.”

I’m not sure which of us moves first, but suddenly we’re kissing. It’s not like that first time, in my bedroom, when I double-dared Max to do it – only to be so surprised by her actually following through that our lips barely met. This kiss has _purpose_ ; I want Max to remember it, to remember _me_. I get the impression that this is the first time she’s ever really kissed someone, but I don’t really give a shit if it’s amateur hour, because I’m kissing _Max Fucking Caulfield_. If I’m about to be wiped out of existence, that’s a pretty damn fine last memory to have.

Finally, reluctantly, feeling my resolve wavering, I break away. “I’ll always love you,” I tell her. “Now, get out of here, please! Do it before I freak – and Max Caulfield? Don’t you forget about me.”

“Never,” she promises. I think she’s crying, but there’s so much rain it’s impossible to tell. Then, she turns away, holding up the Polaroid.

All around me, reality begins to dissolve.

My final thought is that I wish that I could have seen Rachel one last time.

And then…

Darkness.

Silence.

Nothing.

* * *

I jerk awake with a deep, gasping breath.

“Chloe?” The voice is concerned, but also uncertain. It’s a voice I’d recognize anywhere.

“Rachel?” I blink a couple of times to clear the sleep from my eyes, then sit up and look around. I’m in what looks like some sort of dorm room. Not at Blackwell, that’s for sure; it’s bigger than the rooms there, and I can see a second bed opposite the one I’m lying on. There’s a long built-in desk under the windows, and Rachel is just getting up from a chair at the far end of it.

Except… it’s not Rachel. Her skin is darker; she’s part Latina, I think. Her hair is darker as well, more brown than blonde, but she has the same beautiful hazel eyes. Then, I see a feather dangling from her left ear; not just any feather, it’s the same one I saw Rachel wearing, like, a million times. I look more closely, and see a familiar cast to her features, as if they’ve been combined with someone else’s. It’s subtle, but I spent enough time staring at Rachel’s face to recognize even that small hint of her.

“What the actual fuck is going on?” I ask.

“That is an _excellent_ question,” she says, coming over to sit next to me. Her voice still sounds _exactly_ like Rachel’s; it’s eerie. “I’m sure you have hella more of them.”

“Yeah, like, who are you, why do you sound like my dead best friend, where are we, and how am _I_ not dead?” Then, remembering Max’s time powers, I add, “also, what’s the date?”

The girl gives me an approving grin. “It’s October 11th, 2038.” She lets that sink in for a moment. That means… “it’s exactly twenty-five years since you had Max sacrifice you to stop the storm from destroying Arcadia Bay,” she says, finishing my thought. “It worked, by the way. In this timeline, the storm never appeared. Joyce, my parents, all the kids at Blackwell, even Frank and David; everyone in that shit-hole of a town owes you their life.” There’s pride, maybe even a little bit of awe in the way she says that last part. It actually feels pretty fucking good to hear it, to know that I managed to do one good thing in my life.

“Who _are_ you?” I ask again. “And how do you know all that?”

“You could say that it’s… family history. As for _who_ I am, well, that’s complicated. This body belongs to Rachel Oriana Santos, born July 22nd, 2019.” Rachel’s birthday – what would have been her twenty-fifth birthday – no way is that a coincidence. “As for the mind currently speaking to you, my name is Rachel Dawn Amber.” She cocks her head, as if listening to some invisible voice. “Well, mostly; things have gotten a little bit blurred over the past few months.”

I want to believe her, to believe that somehow fate has brought us together again. “Rachel… is it really you?”

She seems to sense that I need proof. “You love science, hate country music, and definitely didn’t break your hand punching someone. I’m an ambidextrous Leo who wasn’t born in New York.”

I stare at her for a moment, remembering the game of ‘two truths and a lie’ that we played, dangling our feet over the edge of a boxcar on the train ride up to Overlook Park. My last doubts flee; I fling my arms around her, and burst into tears. “Oh, god, Rachel, I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Rachel whispers into my ear. “I can’t imagine what you went through during the months after they killed me. I’m so glad you and Max finally tracked those fuckers down.”

I pull back a little, just enough that I can see her face. “Even in this timeline?”

She nods. “Max made sure of that. They picked up Jefferson not long after Nathan shot you, and they’re both locked away for the rest of their miserable lives.”

“Hell, yeah!” I hold up my hand, and Rachel high-fives me.

“You know,” she says, thoughtfully, “maybe I do know a little bit how you felt. I’ve spent the last few months waiting nervously for today, not knowing whether or not you’d come back too. I was kinda expecting you four days ago, on the anniversary of your actual death.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, curious.

“I first… ‘woke up’, I guess you could call it, on April 22nd.” Another date that’s burned into my brain; the day Rachel disappeared. “I found myself alone in what looked like a Blackwell dorm room, which was weird, since I always lived at home. I had no idea what was going on; the last thing I remembered was having drinks with Nathan and a couple of friends. Things just got weirder when saw a calendar with the current year on it. It wasn’t until I looked in the mirror that I totally freaked out, though. That must be what woke up Rachel.”

“Yup, that was it.” The change in her voice startles me. “Oh, er, hi. I’m Rachel Santos; not that I’m not happy to finally meet you, but I’m also… concerned.”

“Because… I’ve hijacked your roommate’s body?”

“Roommate, kinda-cousin, best friend, girlfriend…” says Rachel.

“That’s a yes,” clarifies _my_ Rachel. It’s hella weird hearing these two voices coming out of her, and hella confusing when they both have the same name. She obviously senses this. “By the way, please call me Dawn; that’s what Rachel calls me, and it’s going to drive us all nuts otherwise.”

“Okay, I can do that. So… who am I… who is _she_ … who are _we_? I mean, whose body am I in?” I ask, then add, “pronouns are hard.”

“Why not take a look,” Rach… Dawn suggests, gesturing towards a mirror on the wall. “Your host’s name is Chloe Mariko Ward, born March 11th, 2019.” Same birthday, twenty-five years later, just like Rachel. The first thing I notice when I look at myself is the blue hair; it’s not quite the same as mine was, but longer, and a solid pastel shade. That, combined with a slightly Asian cast to my… _her_ features – I’m guessing a grandparent rather than a parent – makes me immediately think that she looks like she stepped straight out of an anime.

The second thing I notice is that, just as Rachel is wearing Rachel’s… Dawn’s earring, Chloe is wearing my necklace. Instinctively, I reach up to clutch the bullets; the familiar pain of their three points digging into my palm is comforting. “Same name, same birthday, again; life just keeps getting stranger. Does this mean I need to go by my middle name too? ’Cause I never really liked Elizabeth.”

“You could be Liz,” Dawn suggests; I shake my head. “Lizzie? Betsy? Beth?” Those are worse. “No, wait, I got it: Lisbeth.” She pronounces it ‘Liss-bet’.

“Like… _The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo_? Yeah, I could go for that – even if it should really be you.”

“Not any more, I’m afraid.”

“We can always rectify that,” I suggest.

“Er, that’s _my_ body you’re talking about,” Rachel breaks in.

“Okay, fine, no tattoos for Rachel. So… Chloe Ward…” I muse out loud, “like, _Dana_ Ward?” Some sort of Blackwell connection would make sense, I guess.

“Exactly like. Dana and her wife adopted Chloe and her sister when she was about five.” Wife? Huh. I remember Dana being pretty boy-crazy.

I nod slowly. “So, was your… Rachel’s Mom at Blackwell, too?” It’s a guess, since I don’t recognize the name ‘Santos’.

“Yeah; you would know her as Kate Marsh,” Dawn tells me. “She and Dana went to see Max just after she got back from… from letting you die. She ended up telling them everything, and the three of them have been fast friends ever since.”

“Did she meet your dad at church?” I ask, before I can stop myself. Kate’s faith is about the only thing I really know about her.

“In a nightclub, actually,” answers Rachel. I expect a smirk, but instead I see a flash of pain across her face.

“What happened?” I ask, serious now.

“He died. Car accident. I was two.”

Acting on instinct, I pull her into a hug. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I know what that’s like, even though I was fourteen. I’m not sure if that makes it easier or harder.”

“I don’t know,” she says at length. “On the one hand, at least you have all those years of memories of William, but on the other hand, I don’t remember Dad enough to really miss him. I just remember being brought up by two loving mothers.”

“Wait… _Kate_ is gay now?”

“Not exactly; Mom’s legs were smashed in the accident, so her best friend – my godmother – dropped everything and moved onto our couch for six months to look after Mom, me and my baby sister. After her casts came off and it was clear she was never going to walk properly again, we all moved into a big new house together where we could each have our own room, and she became a part of our family. Not long after that, Mom asked Victoria to adopt Erin and me, and she’s been our Mama ever since.” She pronounces it ‘muh-mah’, with a bit of an upper-class British accent.

“She sounds pretty awesome, not like this bitch called Victoria I knew at school, who…”

Rachel cuts me off. “I know exactly what Victoria Chase did at Blackwell, and what my Mom almost did because of her. She’s spent the last quarter of a century trying to make amends for something the rest of us forgave her for a long, long time ago. I am _proud_ to call her my mother.”

I get the message loud and clear: Icky Vicky isn’t icky any more. And, apparently, she and Kate have some sort of a relationship. “Noted. So… is Chloe’s other mother anyone I’d know?”

It’s Dawn who answers, looking a little uncomfortable. “Um, yeah, you could say that.”

I have a horrible feeling I know where this is going. “Wait… Max is my _Mom_ now?”

Dawn grins at me. “You got it.”

“Well, that’s going to be hella awkward… does she even know?”

Dawn shakes her head. “No, not yet; it’s just us four at the moment.”

I nod slowly. “Speaking of which, how do we get Chloe back in her own body? Not that I’m objecting to the whole undead thing, but I guess Rachel would like her girlfriend back at some point. How do we even do that?”

“We’re not entirely sure; for me, it was the shock of seeing myself in Rachel’s body. You were prepared for that, so we’re going to try something a little more basic.” She reaches a hand towards my arm. “This may sting a little.”

And then…

* * *

###### Dawn

“Ow!” says Chloe. “What the fuck, Rachel?” She rubs her arm where Rachel pinched it. “Wait… it happened, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it did.”

“Damn!” She sounds half excited, half terrified. “So, what happens now?”

“Now, you need to figure out how to connect with Chloe, or Lisbeth, as she’s going to go by. I had no idea what was going on at first, when I started hearing Dawn, like a ghost in the back of my head.”

_Woooo!_ I think at Rachel.

_Very funny, Dawn,_ she replies.

“Um… okay,” says Chloe, then her eyes glaze over a little. “Wait. Yes, I can hear you, Lisbeth.” She shoots us a look. “This is really weird.”

“That’s good! You don’t need to talk to her out loud, though. If you form a thought clearly and… direct it at Lisbeth, she should hear you. I’m not sure how else to explain it.”

We watch as Chloe screws her face up in strange ways; after a couple of minutes, she smiles. _I think it’s working,_ I tell Rachel. _That was way quicker than we managed._

_Yeah, but they have the advantage of knowing what the hell is going on._

_Too true. It was a total mind-fuck for me, because waking up in a Blackwell dorm room was at least plausible, if a little confusing. That’s why seeing you in the mirror was such a complete shock. Chlo…Lisbeth_ knows _that she was dead, and she’s already been through a week with all kinds of weirdness._

“Hello again,” says Lisbeth.

“Hey!” says Rachel. “You and Chloe figuring things out?”

“Yeah, we are,” Chloe says, “although we’re probably still going to want some guidance from you two.”

“Of course, anything we can do to help.”

“Could you tell me more about what it was like at first?” Lisbeth asks. “Both of you, I mean, I guess it would be good to see two sides of it.”

“Sure,” Rachel tells her. “After Dawn first emerged, I woke up in front of my mirror with no memory of what had happened. I thought I must have sleepwalked or something, which was a little worrying, seeing as how I’d never done that before. I didn’t think any more of it until the next day, when I started hearing voices; well, _a_ voice. That’s when I started to wonder if I was going crazy.”

“That was me, of course,” I continue. “I woke up again at the same time as Rachel that morning, only that day I was just a passenger. I could see and hear what she did, but I had no control at all. I was scared and confused; at first I was too numb to do anything other than just watch and listen. I quickly discovered that my host was also called Rachel, she was a senior at Blackwell, and that she had a blue-haired girlfriend named Chloe – all of which seemed unlikely to be a string of coincidences. I decided to try communicating, but that didn’t go down well.”

“At first, I tried to ignore it, but my initial startled looking around must have clued Dawn in the first time I heard her. Then I tried to block her out, and that actually worked – a little too well.”

“She put me to sleep,” I clarify.

“That got to be a pattern for the next few days. Dawn would shout at me for a bit, until I put her to sleep. Eventually I confessed to Chloe what was going on, and her prescription was… alcohol.”

“Not the smartest plan, I admit,” she says, “but I’d just gotten a fake ID through a friend in my martial arts class, and…” she trails off, cocking her head slightly. “No, Lisbeth, I don’t know Kung Fu. Why do you Millennials keep asking me that?”

“What she _does_ know had the entire football squad terrified of her, though,” Rachel says, and I see Chloe preen a little.

“Anyway, I wanted to take my new ID for a spin, and this seemed like the perfect excuse.”

“It turns out that they’re a pair of lightweights,” I say. “They hadn’t gotten very far into Chloe’s bottle of Jack before crawling into bed together and passing out. That’s when _I_ woke up – slightly buzzed, I’ll admit; about where I’d be an hour or so into an old-school Vortex Club party – so I guess my alcohol tolerance somehow carried over. It was the first time I’d been in control since my initial wake-up, and I was determined to make the most of it. I managed to extract myself from Chloe, and the bed, then went over to Rachel’s laptop.”

“It took me a while to figure things out – computers have changed a lot since our day. Apparently Facebook is gone, but I managed to find the app that everyone uses instead these days, and that gave me a gold mine of information. I immediately recognized Victoria as one of Rachel’s mothers, and Dana as one of Chloe’s; Max, too – I might never have met her, but Chlo…Lisbeth sure did talk about her a lot. Then, I searched for Chloe Price, wanting to see how my old BFF was doing; instead, I found newspaper articles about her murder, and my murder, and…”

I choke up, and Rachel sends me a mental hug; Chloe comes over and gives us a real one. “I cried for a long time when I discovered that you were dead, and when I thought about what my parents must have gone through during those months my body was lying undiscovered in a shallow grave. After that, I decided to leave a message for Rachel, and I thought of a way to prove who I was. I typed up a message on her computer, and left there for her to find. Then, I climbed back into bed with Chloe, and went to sleep.”

“I woke up the next morning with a pounding headache,” Rachel says. “And when I saw Dawn’s message I totally freaked. Chloe swore blind that she hadn’t done it and, since I’d practically been lying on top of her the whole night, I believed her. So, I did what the message said: I called Mama and asked her about _The Tempest_. She told me about how she’d been Dawn’s understudy, and then got promoted after the two of you got into trouble and Wells kicked her off the play. Except, Dawn was having none of that, and drugged Victoria to get her part back. When I scrolled down after the call, that matched up with the rest of the message – and I started to believe.”

“The next time I heard Dawn’s voice, I listened, and I talked back. Eventually, largely thanks to Chloe’s mocking, I figured out that I could talk to her without doing it out loud. I learned how to let Dawn speak through me, and even to give her full control of my body – although I was a little bit nervous about that at first. We also worked out agreements around privacy, not least because I badly needed some alone time with my girlfriend.” Chloe let out a wolf-whistle at that – or, more likely, Lisbeth did. I looked at her… them. Now, more than ever, I see hints of my old friend’s features on her new host’s face.

‘Friend’ seems such an inadequate word to describe what Chloe Price was to me. After that chance meeting at the old mill, I dragged her into my mess of a life – far more of a mess than I realized at first. I took advantage of her clear need for a friend to fill the hole that I later learned had been left by Max, I started to go along with her interest in us being more than just friends, and then… then I learned the truth about my father and birth mother. I realized that I needed to keep Chloe as my friend, that she was the only person who could… _would_ help me to navigate this brave new world – and that I wasn’t prepared to follow through on what I’d let begin.

I told Chloe how desperately I needed her friendship, how I was terrified that if we pursued a relationship I might lose her completely, and even though I wanted to, I couldn’t afford to take that risk. Two truths and a lie. She took the bait, and fell over herself to be what I needed her to be. Don’t get me wrong, our friendship was real, and it wasn’t a one-way street, but there were plenty of times when I was a manipulative bitch to get what I wanted from her. Deep down, I knew how much it hurt her when I started dating boys… dating men. I needed… well, something, and whatever it was, they gave it to me – for a while. Of course, they also ended up killing me, so I guess I got my comeuppance.

Thing is, underneath all of that, I began to realize that maybe I hadn’t been faking it that first – and last – time I kissed her. That I had feelings for her which were only getting stronger the harder I tried to push them down. I ran out of time before I had the guts to admit that; to myself, let alone to Chloe. Now I’ve been given a second chance, the one I’ever desperately been hoping for these past few months. This isn’t the time to rush into it, though; we need to let things settle, figure out how we fit into our new lives. But, when the time, is right, I’ll tell Lisbeth the truth – all of it – and if she still wants me after that… well, I guess we’ll see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this has been brewing for a while now; I've been dropping hints that there's something going on with Rachel and Chloe ever since the former was born (true story: my original outline had that as "Jul/Aug '19", before I even thought to check Rachel Amber's birthday), it just took me some time to figure out where I wanted to go with it.


	2. What is a Ghost Like Me Doing in a Girl Like This?

###### Lisbeth

Dana meets us at the airport; it throws me a little seeing her so much older when, for me, only a couple of months have passed. Don’t get me wrong, she still looks fantastic. All that dancing means that she has a body I’d have pegged as early thirties, not mid-forties. When she hugs us, it feels really good. _That’s my Ma_ , Chloe tells me, and I allow my embarrassment to leak out before making sure my blocks are properly in place. I decide to take a nap and let her have some privacy to catch up with her mother.

It’s a few hours later when Chloe wakes me up. _Ma just left for the theater, E’s doing homework, and Mom’s editing some photos. Now might be a good time to talk to her._

 _Are you sure?_ I ask, hella nervous.

 _Waiting won’t make it any easier._ She walks over to one of the doors off the main room and goes through it; then, before I have any chance to object, drops me into control of her body. I use the moment of disorientation to look around at what is clearly Max’s workroom. There’s some heavy-duty shelving with cameras, lights, and other equipment stored on it, a couple of reflectors hanging on the wall, and a light table. Max is sat in front of a computer monitor that looks almost as big as the desk it’s resting on.

I take a deep breath. “What up, Max Factor? Long time no see.”

She freezes at the sound of my voice. “Chloe?” she says disbelievingly, before slowly turning around. Her eyes narrow when she sees us, and she immediately gets up and takes a step forward.

“What have you done with my daughter?” The change in her voice is scary.

“Woah there, momma bear,” I begin, before Chloe quickly takes over.

“It’s okay Mom, I’m fine, I promise. Chloe hasn’t done anything to harm me.”

“Okay, but you need to explain what the hell is going on _right now_ ,” says Max, her voice deadly serious.

“Fine. So, you know how by some weird coincidence I was born exactly twenty five years after Chloe Price? It turns out that the same applies to Rachel _Santos_ and Rachel _Amber_. It also turns out that exactly twenty-five years after they died, those two girls popped up in the back of our heads.”

“Wait… this has been going on for _months_ and I’m just now hearing about it?”

“Yes; how long was it before you told your parents about your rewind power?” Chloe asks, then adds silently, _I know full well that she_ still _hasn’t._

Max purses her lips. “You’ve got me there, but things look very different from this side of a mother-daughter relationship. I need to know a little more about what’s going on.”

“It’s… hard to explain. Like, we’re sharing a body, but we’re two separate minds, although we have some sort of telepathic link. It’s still my body, though, and she can’t do anything unless I let her, so you don’t need to worry about her hijacking me. Besides, I trust her.”

Max nods slowly, “how do I know this is real?”

 _You’re on,_ Chloe tells me.

“Ask me a question only I would know the answer to,” I say.

Max flinches, just a little. “Sorry, that two-voices thing is a little creepy.”

“Just wait until you see us talking to Rachel and Dawn,” I tell her.

“Dawn?”

“Rachel Amber; we use her middle name to avoid confusion; I go by Lisbeth now.” There’s a flash of confusion on Max’s face, then a small grin as she figures out the reference.

“Right… So, my question is this: what did you want to steal from Principal Wells’ office?”

“His comfy chair,” I answer at once, before adding, “and the handicapped fund – which I now feel _hella_ guilty about.”

“I’ve never told _anyone_ that,” Max says, slowly. “Holy fuck, it really is you!” She throws her arms around me. “Dog, I’ve missed you _so much._ ”

I hug her back. “I’ve missed you too, even if it’s only been a couple of months for me.” It’s a few minutes before we manage anything else coherent.

“Look,” Max begins, “I am so sorry that…”

“You have _nothing_ to apologize for,” I tell her. “The only way to save me came at too high a price, but you _did_ get justice for Dawn and me, and that’s as much as either of us could ask for.”

“I know, it’s just…” She turns away a little, seeming unable to look me in the eye. “If there was a way for me to go back and save both you _and_ the town, I’m not sure if I could do it, not if it meant giving up the life I have now.”

I step forward, and rest a hand on her back. “I understand; Chloe has shown me some of her memories. I’ve seen how happy this family is, how happy _you_ are. I would never ask you to give that up for me. I made some bad choices, and I have to live with the consequences of them – or, _not_ , as it turns out.”

Max cocks her head. “You’ve changed.”

“Death has a way of doing that to a person,” I tell her with a smirk.

“Does anyone else know about… you?”

I shake my head. “No; well, Rachel and Dawn will be telling Kate and Victoria this evening. I’m still trying to wrap my head around those two being together, by the way.”

“It took me a long time to be okay with Victoria,” Max admits. “Years after Kate forgave her and they became best friends, I would still remember seeing Kate jump off the roof, and the part Victoria played in setting her on that path. Seeing them now, though… anyone can see how utterly devoted to Kate Victoria is, and how happy she makes her.” She shrugs. “I can’t argue with that.”

“I assume we’ll tell Dana when she gets home, and as for Emma, we thought you two should be part of that decision.”

Max sighs. “We still haven’t told her and Erin about my time at Blackwell, I guess we can add this to that conversation. We’ll need to talk to Kate and Victoria about that, but the E’s are older than you… than Chloe and Rachel were when we told _them_.”

“They’ll be fine with it, Mom, I’m sure,” Chloe says. “Mostly they’ll just be pissed off you didn’t tell them at the same time you told _us_.”

Max smiles. “You’re probably right about that. Look, I have some questions about how this whole body-sharing thing works, but they can wait until Dana gets back so we don’t have to go through it twice. Do you mind if I have a chat with… Lisbeth, was it?”

“Of course not,” Chloe tells her, “I can take a nap until then.” _Wake me up when Ma gets home, would you?_

“What do you mean, ‘nap’?”

“That’s we call on it when one of us puts her personality to sleep for a while, to give the other some privacy,” I tell her.

“I’m going to want to know more about that later,” she tells me, “but for now… what do you remember about our time at Blackwell?”

“I remember the whole week or, at least, some version of it, right up until we kissed at the lighthouse. After we said goodbye, the next thing I remember is waking up in Chloe’s body, in her and Rachel’s dorm room, twenty-five years later. I’m not sure why it is that I remember that timeline when no-one else other than you does, but I guess there’s not much about that situation – or this one – that makes any kind of sense.”

“No, I don’t suppose there is, but I’m glad that we’ve been given this chance to get to know each other again… again.”

“Speaking of which, there’s a whole quarter-century of your life I need to catch up on.”

“That may take a little more time than we have right now,” Max says with a laugh.

“I know, but I’m sure we’ll have more opportunities over the holidays. For now, just give me the Cliff’s notes. Let’s start with… you and Dana; when did that happen?”

“I guess the seeds were planted the very first night I got back to this timeline. The other me had invited Kate and Dana over to watch _Blade Runner_ , and I ended up telling them _everything_. They’d both seen enough odd behavior from the other me that they believed my whole crazy time-traveling tale, and decided that I needed looking after. Kate volunteered to act as a kind of therapist, so it was more Dana that I hung out with just as a friend. It took me a few weeks to get over you, but once I did, I quickly realized that I’d developed feelings for her.”

“Unfortunately, we only got a few months together before we went to college: Dana to a dance academy in New York, and me to an arts school in Los Angeles; we chose to break up rather than make things work _that_ long-distance. I ended up dating my bi-curious roommate Monica for a year and a half, and then one of my TA’s – who turned out to be a lying, gaslighting bitch. It’s mostly thanks to the fallout from _that_ relationship that I fucked up my chance to get back together with Dana after Kate’s wedding, the summer after we all finished college.”

“After that, I decided to stay home in Seattle long term, doing various photography-related jobs. I soon met Sam, who I had more than three happy years with, before they met someone else and we somewhat amicably parted ways. We were living in New York by then, having moved there when Sam got a job on the _Times_ , and I was starting to make a decent living as a professional photographer. When it turned out that Dana was looking for a new apartment too… I guess things all turned out for the best in the end – although it did take a little bit of meddling from Kate and Victoria to seal the deal.”

“Our wedding was the next fall, a dozen years ago, now; the following summer Chloe and Emma joined our little family. I’ve had a good life, even if there have been some rough patches, but if I could step through a photograph and change any of it, I wouldn’t. Those painful experiences helped to shape the person I am now, and for all I know, if Dana and I had gotten back together sooner, we might not have been at the right point in our lives to make it work. And then… I couldn’t give up my daughters, not for anything.”

“I’m happy for you, Max, _really_ happy. I’m glad that one of us got to grow up and become a proper, functioning adult. I don’t know whether this whole semi-possession thing that Dawn and I have going on is going to be a permanent gig or not, but I hope that I’m going to get to spend a lot more time with you. Who knows, maybe I’ll grow up too.”

“One piece of advice on that front: don’t be in any rush. Look, I _do_ need to finish up editing these photos. Do you mind if we postpone the rest of this conversation until Dana gets home?”

“Of course not. I’ll leave you to it; come grab Chloe when you’re ready.”

* * *

Dana is, perhaps, a little more thrown by my presence that Max was – but then she didn’t experience the week of hell first-hand. We didn’t really know each other that well at Blackwell, either, so I can’t as readily prove my identity. Her greeting is somewhat less enthusiastic, too. Max and Rachel vouch for me, but then we circle back to Max’s initial reaction: two parents’ concern for their daughter.

“It’s still _my_ body,” Chloe tells them, “I’m in control. I can lock Lisbeth out any time I want, I can even… put her to sleep until _I_ wake her up.”

“But she _can_ have control?” Dana insists.

“Only when Chloe allows it,” I say, “for example, right now she’s letting me speak, but that’s it. I can’t even twitch a finger. Believe me, that takes some getting used to. She can also give me full control, essentially reversing our roles, but the difference is that she can take back the reins at any time, and there’s nothing I can do to stop her.”

“Chloe, you said something earlier about ‘taking a nap,’” says Max. “What exactly did you mean by that?”

“I meant that I left Lisbeth in full control of my body, and put my mind to sleep to give her some privacy.”

“But… surely she could do anything, hurt you even, and you wouldn’t be able to stop her.” Dana seems quite uncomfortable with this thought.

“She could,” Chloe acknowledges, “but I trust her – and at the end of the day, it’s the only body she’s got, too.”

“Dana, Max, I promise that I would _never_ do _anything_ to harm your daughter, in _any_ way.”

Max nods slowly. “I believe you, Lisbeth.”

“I’m grateful that Chloe and Rachel are willing to give Dawn and me some private time together; it would be rather awkward for us to try and rebuild our relationship with those two looking over our shoulders.”

“Hey, are you saying that we’re nosy?” Rachel asks, but I can tell that her indignant tone is faked; inside, she’s smiling.

“I’m pretty sure that’s a well-established fact,” mutters Dana.

Max opens her mouth as if to say something, then closes it again. “I was going to ask more about your relationship,” she says at length, “but I have a feeling that would quickly venture into the realms of questions that I don’t want to know the answers to.”

 _By which she means my sex life, I imagine,_ Chloe tells me. _Along with the possibility that you might have one at some point._

 _Um, yeah._ That’s not something the four of us have really discussed. Chloe and Rachel, quite rightly, insist on privacy for their date nights, and any other time their physical relationship goes past casual kisses. 

And then, there’s Dawn. I’ve been in love with her for years, even when I knew that her feelings towards me were… complicated. Now, things are different. There’s a nasty little part of me that wonders if it’s because, frankly, she has no other option, and I’m some sort of consolation prize. I don’t really believe that, though; I think that the situation has forced her to come to terms with her own emotions, and that she truly does love me. I hope so, certainly it’s the impression I’ve gotten from her when Chloe and Rachel give us private time for our own date nights. We’ve only recently made it back to first base, and the idea of going any further is… problematic, given that these aren’t our bodies. Chloe’s comment does suggest that she and Rachel have at least discussed it, though.

“Okay, that blush is embarrassing _me_ , now,” says Dana. “I think we should call it a night.” She comes over and gives us a hug. “It was nice to meet you again, Lisbeth,” she says; not particularly warmly, but it’s a start.

“Yeah, it’s hella awesome to have you back,” says Max, making it a three-way hug.

“Um, thanks,” I tell them, feeling a little awkward.

“Yeah, night Moms,” says Chloe as she extracts herself and hurries back to her room.

* * *

###### Dawn

“So, you’re okay with me naming Rachel after you?” Kate asks. She and Victoria took the news of my resurrection about as well as we could have hoped.

“Are you kidding? I think it’s unbelievably sweet.”

“It’s good that you have a nice Biblical name,” she says with a grin, “so at least I didn’t have to fight with my mother about it.”

“But she was okay with Erin?”

“Well, the masculine version _is_ biblical, and it seems that even Mom drew the line at complaining when she’s named for her late father.”

I wince inwardly. “Sorry…”

Kate shakes her head. “Don’t be. Aaron’s been gone far longer than we were together; I made my peace with it a good while ago. I almost always remember him with a smile nowadays.”

I look at Victoria. She’s been oddly quiet the whole time, which I suppose isn’t a great surprise. We didn’t exactly have the best relationship back when I was alive. It may have been twenty-five years for her, but I very much doubt that she’s forgotten all of the shit I pulled on her back in the day. “Victoria, I… I’m sorry, for being such a bitch to you when we were at Blackwell. I know that’s probably ancient history to you by now, but… well, it’s still feels pretty fresh to me.”

She looks at me for a moment, before saying, “apology accepted. Let’s face it, once you were out of the picture, I was just as bad as you were – if not worse. I all but danced on your grave, and what I did to Kate…” the other woman reaches out to take her hand, and they share a look that speaks volumes. “That was far worse than anything you ever did. As long as you’re not planning to be a bad influence on our daughter, I think we can get along just fine.”

“What are your long-term plans?” asks Kate.

“I… well, I don’t really have any. How can I? Ultimately, this is Rachel’s life, and I’m just along for the ride. Where she goes, I go; what she does, I do.”

“That doesn’t seem very fair on you.”

I shrug. “What’s the alternative? It’s certainly not fair to ask Rachel to stop living her life the way she wants to just because I showed up. It’s certainly not a practical option for us to somehow live separate lives.”

“I suppose that’s true, and I appreciate your respect for our daughter, but surely you deserve _some_ level of control over your life?”

Kate’s concern touches me more than I can express, and Rachel jumps in before I can pull myself back together enough to respond. “She does; at least for day-to-day stuff I try to make sure to include Dawn and decide things together. Sure, it’s a bit different when it comes to long-term career and life plans, but at the very least I don’t think I could bear choosing to do something Dawn opposed.”

“Honestly, we’re a lot more on the same wavelength than I initially expected,” I continue. “I’m actually enjoying working with Rachel on her writing, acting as a sort of built-in beta reader.” I look at Kate, herself a successful author of books for young children. “Your daughter is a wonderful writer. You should be very proud of her.”

“I am,” she says, beaming.

_Aw, shucks!_ Rachel says, her mental voice sounding a little embarrassed.

“What about… relationships?” Victoria asks, a wicked grin on her face.

“Uh…” I begin, before Rachel cuts me off.

“That wasn’t very nice, Mama, trying to drop Dawn in it. I think it’s time the two of you stopped pretending that you don’t know about Chloe and me.”

“What about you and Chloe?” Kate asks, her face a picture of innocence as she takes a sip of tea. So much so, that surely it has to be put on.

“That we’re lovers.” Oh, _snap!_ Kate’s tea comes right back out of her nose; Victoria concernedly pats her on the back, but I can see she’s biting her lip, trying to hold back laughter.

Kate pulls a tissue from up her sleeve and wipes off her face. “Well, I suppose I walked right into that,” she says at length, finally smiling.

“I’m in love with Chloe, Mom,” Rachel says, serious now. “Heck, I’ve loved her for as long as I can remember. We make each other happy, and I can’t imagine not spending the rest of my life with her. I know we’re still young, but this just feels like… fate.”

“And I spent the last few years of my life trying to deny how I felt about Chloe Price. Now that I’ve been given a second chance, I’m not going to continue that mistake.”

“Chloe and I insisted that they go on a couple of dates,” Rachel adds. “We want Dawn and Lisbeth to work out – not least because it’s the only way either of us would be comfortable with them dating.” She grins back at Victoria. “Aren’t you glad you brought this up?”

“Indeed; let’s move on to a safer topic, like, say… politics.”

“Ugh, it was almost worth dying, just to miss out on the Trump years,” I tell her. “But, hey, we have a Latina president now…”

“…which Dawn is entirely too pleased about,” Rachel cuts in,“given that _she’s_ been Latina for less than eight months…”


	3. I… am a Librarian!

###### Dawn

It’s only been a few months, but Chicago is already starting to feel like home. I’d never have guessed that when Rachel and Chloe picked here to continue their education after Blackwell; I’d been hoping for Los Angeles, San Francisco, or… well, somewhere warmer, and perhaps a little familiar. It turns out that most of what I missed about my old home was simply being in a big city, and I started to remember all the things about LA that I _don’t_ miss. Plus, I have to confess that I _love_ the pizza here, although Chloe – as a bona-fide New Yorker – is horrified by it.

An added bonus about being in Chicago is that we have family here; well, Rachel does, at least. Her aunt Ruth moved up here back when she was a toddler, and it’s where she met her wife. Rachel’s always been very close to her, possibly because, for Kate, she’s the only person in her family she can truly be herself with. By all accounts, she figured out what was going on with Kate and Victoria before _they_ did, whereas their mother is a raging homophobe, and even Lynn is rather less progressive than her sisters are.

We have a standing invitation to go to Ruth and Zara’s place for Sunday lunch – well, Rachel and Chloe do; we agreed that Lisbeth and I, like Max’s rewind power, would remain a secret kept from everyone except their mothers and sisters. We usually go at least a couple of times a month, and Chloe is happy to spend hours gaming with their pre-teen son on his Playbox, while Rachel hangs out in the kitchen, helping her aunts with the cooking. They’re easy to talk to, and happy to dispense both sage advice, and the low down on Chicago’s gay scene. They tease us about how much easier things are for us, after eighteen years of Democrats in the White House; when they were our age, Trumpism was still a fresh wound. Of course, they’re also the first to admit that it’s nothing compared to how much harder it was for the generation before _them_.

The other unexpected thing is that Rachel and I are studying to become a _librarian_. If you’d asked me back in ’13 to list my preferred career choices, you can bet that would _not_ have made that top ten; hell, it wouldn’t have made the top _hundred_. Okay, so Rachel’s actual goal is to make a living off her writing, but she’s pragmatic enough to know that her chances of being the next Stephen King or J.K. Rowling – or even Kate Santos – are pretty slim, and that only a tiny fraction of writers get to give up their day job and pursue it full time. Since Rachel loves reading even more than she loves writing, librarianship makes sense; it’s something she actually _wants_ to do, not just a backup plan in case her writing career never takes off. Still, it isn’t exactly _my_ dream job.

Then again, my dream job was to become a model, or a movie star, or a rock legend. I had all kinds of unearned confidence that I could simply walk into some high-flying gig just because I was _Rachel fucking Amber_. I didn’t know – didn’t _want_ to know – what a long shot it was, or what I would actually have been getting myself into, the sacrifices and compromises I’d have had to make. In all honesty, I’m pretty sure that if Chloe and I _had_ run away, I’d have ended up living the LA dream… of working as a waitress; hoping that eventually some big-shot producer would notice me, spending every spare dollar on acting lessons, and – if I was really lucky – maybe landing a spot in a commercial.

I’m slowly coming around to the idea that embracing Rachel’s more down-to-earth dreams might not be so bad.

_Hey, Earth to Dawn, you awake in there?_ Rachel’s mental voice asks me. _Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your date?_

_Yeah, sorry, got a little bit lost in thought._

_Anything you want to talk about? I know you’re nervous about telling Lisbeth the truth, but she loves you. She_ will _forgive you; maybe not right away, but give her some time, and she will._ Her tone is filled with compassion.

_I know, I just can’t help thinking… ‘what if she doesn’t?’ I have no Plan B; there is literally no-one else for me. It would be pretty much impossible for me to avoid her, and I’m terrified that if our relationship breaks down it’s going to damage yours and Chloe’s…_

_That’s_ not _going to happen,_ Rachel breaks in, before I can go into a spiral of panic. _Sure, you may go through a rough patch, but it’ll all be okay in the end. You’ll see. Where’s that Rachel Amber confidence?_

_Still stuck in my previous life,_ I shoot back, but I’m already starting to calm down. _Sorry._

_That’s okay._ I can feel the warmth of her emotions. _And, when the two of you have got things all worked out, the four of us need to have a talk about getting you laid._

“Wait, what?” Rachel catches me off-guard, and I say it out loud. I can feel our mouth forming a smirk.

_C’mon, time to get you dressed for your date, before Chloe gets home._

_Smooth segue, Rachel._ She ignores my sarcasm and walks over to the closet, starting to look through our side of it for a suitable outfit.

* * *

###### Lisbeth

So… Chloe wants to be a cop. No, seriously. That means that _I’m_ going to be a cop. Good thing there’s no way for them to know about all that weed I smoked back in Arcadia Bay – even though it’s completely legal nowadays, which kinda takes some of the fun out of it. She’s got us taking all these classes in things like criminal law and forensic science; her plan is that the degree should get us on the fast-track to a detective’s badge. Now, _that_ I can get behind; I guess my week at Blackwell with Max, trying to solve the mystery of what happened to Rachel, gave me a taste for it. And maybe, after sacrificing myself to save a town, I want to keep helping people.

Whatever the reason, I’ve been studying as hard as Chloe has. We’ve figured out that, while our minds may still need six to eight hours of sleep a night each, our body can get along just fine with a whole lot less – provided the difference is mostly spent sitting or lying down. This means that I can study for a few hours after Chloe’s gone to sleep, let our body rest for a few more, and then she can get a few hours in before I wake up. We do some studying together as well, but we quickly found out that reading is surprisingly difficult when someone else has control of your eyeballs. Writing is better, as we can plan stuff mentally between us with a single typist, but mostly one of us writes the first draft of an assignment, the other does a thorough rewrite of it, and we do a final pass together.

Is this kind of collaborative work cheating? I’m not sure. It certainly gives us an advantage over other people, but it’s one that we’re always going to have – assuming that I do get to stick around permanently. Two heads may be better than one, but two minds in one head comes pretty damn close. Of course, it doesn’t stop both of us from losing track of time in the library – which is why we’re rushing home, so that I’m not late for my date with Dawn. I open the door of our dorm room just in time catch a brief glimpse of the lacy panties barely covering Rachel’s ass, before her dress slides down to hide them. I let out a wolf-whistle.

“Pervert,” Rachel says, good-naturedly.

“Well, if you’re worried about that, you should tell your girlfriend to keep our eyes off you while I’m awake.”

She grins. “That would be mean. Anyway, I’m going to sign off now; have a good evening, and don’t do anything Chloe wouldn’t do… or some of the things she _would_ do.”

“Also, if you hadn’t been late, you wouldn’t have missed the rest of the show,” Dawn continues.

“Sorry, sorry… do I have time for a quick shower?”

“Of course,” she says. I make it the quickest one on record, and it’s only as I’m pulling my own panties on a few minutes later that I realize Dawn hasn’t actually been watching me; in fact, she seems oddly withdrawn.

“You okay?” I ask, once I’m dressed in a smart shirt and pants.

“Yeah,” she says, her smile bright – if, perhaps, a little forced. “Just something on my mind.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

“That’s kinda the plan for this evening.”

It isn’t until we’re lingering over dessert in the fancy restaurant Dawn picked out that she actually does, though.

“So, I owe you a huge apology.”

“For what?” I ask, genuinely baffled.

“For the way I treated you. Before… the storm.”

I freeze. I badly need to have this conversation – and desperately want to avoid it. I hoped to leave all those painful memories in the past, but I know that they can’t be ignored forever, not if we want to have a future together. Dawn looks at me, concerned; I simply nod for her to continue, not trusting my voice right now.

“From that first day, when we went up to Overlook Park, I started to manipulate you; it’s what I do… no, what I _used_ to do. I didn’t stop to think about the trouble dragging you out of school would get you into; I just needed someone to go with me, and after meeting you at the old mill, I was kinda intrigued. You were like a puppy dog, all eager to please, and I took advantage of that. Then, after we saw my Dad with Sera, I felt like shit, so I treated _you_ like shit. Sure, I tried to stop Wells kicking you out the next day, but only because by then I was having a minor attack of guilt.”

“Even after all that, you were still willing to help me, and when you let me sweet-talk you into standing in for Juliet… that evening was magical.” She smiles, and I do too; however terrifying it was at the time, getting up on stage with Rachel was one of the most incredible experiences of my short life. “When you asked me to kiss you, that was real; even if there was a part of me thinking that it would make you easier to control, I _wanted_ that kiss. And then… everything went to shit.”

“I don’t need to tell you what happened next, and after the fallout from all that, I realized that I needed you… as a _friend_. I made a calculated choice to pull back from any more of a relationship than that, out of fear of it not working, and losing you completely.”

“And I accepted that,” I tell her. “It’s not exactly an uncommon trope.” That doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt like hell; in fact, it _still_ hurts.

“Perhaps, if that was all I did. But I kept flirting with you, just enough to distract you from developing a romantic interest in anyone else who might take you away from me – even after _I_ started dating.” She pauses for a moment, and forces herself to look me in the eye. “I didn’t do that deliberately to hurt you, but I knew that was going to be the result. The only concession I made was to stick to guys; somehow it felt like it would be a bigger betrayal if I’d gone out with another woman.” She shrugs. “I don’t know if you actually feel this way.”

“I’m not sure either,” I admit, trying to imagine it, “but I have a feeling you’re probably right. I tried to convince myself that you were straight, that our kiss was… a momentary aberration, brought on by the stress of what was happening. That you’d pulled away because of my gender, not because of _me_. I know that Steph wasn’t the only other girl who hit on you, and I guess it did make me feel a little better that you turned them all down.” I pause to look at her, see the guilty expression, and eyes bright with unshed tears, and force myself to say what I need her to know, “Thing is, Dawn, you’ve done very little these past few months to convince me that I’m not still just an experiment.”

She drops her head, but not so much that I can’t see the tear running down her cheek. “I’m sorry. I thought that I should…” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. Clearly I was wrong. Please allow me to rectify that mistake.” Once again, she looks me right in the eye. “I love you.”

Those three simple words – backed by the look in her eyes of pure honesty, and naked vulnerability – have my heart suddenly soaring, the pain of seconds before forgotten. Right here, right now, in this moment, I _know_ it’s going to be alright, that _we_ are going to be alright. I belatedly realize Dawn is still speaking, and force myself to focus on her words.

“…know it’s going to take time to earn back your trust, even if you _can_ forgive everything I did. But this isn’t an experiment, it isn’t because our options are limited, this is about me realizing something that I should have figured out a lifetime ago. I was too scared to admit it, and because of that I ended up hurting the only person I’ve ever truly loved. We’ve been given a second chance at life, I just hope you can find it in your heart to give me a second chance at love.”

Dawn is wringing her hands nervously on the table; I reach out and cover them with my own. “I lost you once before; I don’t want to lose you again. After you disappeared, it was like all the joy was sucked out of my life; _any_ pain you caused me pales when compared to that.” I pause to wipe away my own tears. “We love each other; we _will_ figure out how to make this work – and we have Rachel and Chloe to support us, too.”

Dawn gives me a watery smile. “So… that’s a yes?”

“Of course it is, you dummy!” I hesitate for a moment, before adding, “Look, I’m riding a bit of a high right now, and that’s not going to last forever. We _are_ going to need to have more conversations like this, and it’s going to take me some time to come to terms with everything you did. I’m pretty sure that I have a bunch of repressed emotions I’m going to need to deal with before I can completely forgive you.”

“I understand, and… thank-you. I swear, I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

I give her a lecherous smirk. “Oh, I have a few ideas.”

She blinks in surprise at my sudden change of gear. “I think that’s a conversation we need to be having with our hosts.”

“For sure,” I agree, “but right now, you’ll have to settle for taking me home so we can spend an hour or two making out on the couch.”

“I wouldn’t call that ‘settling’,” she says softly.

“Me eith…”

“Is there anything else I can get for you,” interrupts our waiter.

I share a look with Dawn before we speak in unison. “Check, please!”


	4. I Would Pay One Hundred Pounds Just to See Them Hang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a central conceit I originally planned for use in _Missing Pieces_ , but I think the twist of _this_ story makes it work rather better.
> 
> Content warnings: smut, and psychological mistreatment of a mentally unwell individual.

###### Lisbeth

We’re back in Oregon for a couple of days. Chloe’s professor for our criminal psychology class had an ‘interesting’ idea for the seniors: having students conduct interviews with real-life criminals. That gave us a bit of a crazy idea, and Rachel was able to use some of her parents’ money and influence to swing it – although I rather suspect it was without their knowledge. Tomorrow, we have a couple of appointments to keep, but tonight we’re in a moderately fancy hotel room, with nothing much to do other than watch some mindless action movie.

_I think I’m going to call it a night,_ Chloe tells me once the end credits start to roll. _You two have fun!_ Before I have any chance to respond, she’s gone.

“Um, did Chloe just disappear on you?” Dawn asks me. I nod. “I guess they must have planned that.”

“Well, if they’ve both gone to sleep, I guess we should probably head to bed.” My feigned innocence is about as believable as Kate’s.

“Indeed,” purrs Dawn, pulling me up from the couch, and towards the bed. Taking advantage of Chloe’s martial arts training, I flip my girlfriend, landing her on her back in the middle of the mattress. Then, I pounce.

It’s actually been more than a week since we last got any quality time alone together, so I’m in no mood to take thing slowly. My hand is already working its way under her T-shirt as my mouth finds hers. After a couple of minutes, Dawn make a futile attempt to push me off; instead, I take advantage of the situation to pull her shirt over her head before pinning her again. The gleam in Dawn’s eye reminds me how much she likes it when I take control like this. I kiss her again, our tongues tangling for a minute, before I tear my mouth away to lavish attention first on her neck, then her chest.

For at least the tenth time, I thank God that Rachel favors front-fastening bras; a quick flick of the clasp, and I can push the cups aside. Immediately, I latch onto one nipple while palming her other breast. Dawn moans, and arches up against me. I bite down a little, and she moans again. I switch my attention to other breast for a while, until Dawn makes an impatient noise. I smile, and sit back, unbuttoning her fly before pulling her jeans and panties down to her ankles. Dawn grabs at me, pulling me back down into another searing kiss. My hand slides between her legs, finding her already wet. It only takes a few short minutes of circling a finger around her clit before her hips are bucking as she comes.

I roll onto my side, licking my finger clean as I watch Dawn trying to get her breathing under control. “Wow!” she manages at last. “I still can’t get over how responsive my new body is. Sex is _way_ better than it was in my old one.”

I smirk at her. “Are you sure it’s not just that you have a better lover now?”

She grins back. “I suppose that might explain it, too. I’d have to do some comparative testing for sure, and I have _zero_ interest in that.”

I lean over to kiss her again. “Not least because Rachel would never let you take control again if you tried.”

“Well, there’s that; but mostly because I don’t ever want to hurt you like that again.” She sits up to slip out of what’s left of her clothes, then turns to face me. I shiver with anticipation at the predatory look in her eyes. “My turn.”

* * *

###### Dawn

As Chloe pulls our hire car into the parking lot at Oregon State Penitentiary, I can feel Rachel’s nervousness mirroring my own. In a few minutes, we’ll be meeting one of the men responsible for mine and Lisbeth’s deaths, as well as what happened to Rachel’s Mom. Of course, I won’t be able to confront him directly; I’ll just be a silent passenger at the interview. I’m not sure what I’d say, anyway. It takes longer than I expect to sign in and go through the various security checkpoints, before we’re finally led to an interview room. A couple of minutes later, the prisoner is brought in and sat down opposite us.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Jefferson,” Chloe says, all business. “I’m Chloe Ward, and this is my associate, Rachel Santos. Thank you for taking the time to meet with us.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” he says, oozing with fake charm, “if there’s one thing I have plenty of here, it’s time. And please, call me Mark. Mr. Jefferson makes me feel like I’m back at school.” He smiles disarmingly, as if inviting us to share his jokes; I don’t find them funny. “I have to say that I was intrigued by your interview request, and I haven’t had many visitors during my stay here.” I feel faintly sick.

_You okay?_ Rachel asks me.

_Yeah, it’s just… what the fuck did I ever see in him?_

_Don’t beat yourself up, Dawn. I may be gay, but I can still see when a guy’s attractive; and I’m sure that charm would be anything but stomach-churning if I didn’t know what he was._

We let Chloe conduct the interview, it being _her_ assignment after all. She’s very smooth, asking about his art, pretending a sympathetic ear. It’s not long before he’s proudly telling her that all his models would have posed for him willingly; that the drugs were simply a way to get the necessary ‘authentic vulnerability’ his art required.

_Yeah, right,_ Rachel says, disgusted.

_I mean, I already had, and I’m sure Victoria would’ve if he’d actually asked, but Kate? Never in a million years._

Jefferson concludes the interview by throwing Nathan under the bus, expressing regret that he ‘hadn’t sufficiently supervised a student, who then got carried away,’ and denying all knowledge that he had any kind of mental illness. I have a strong urge to beat the shit out of him, and even though Rachel’s fully in control, I feel our hand twitch a little.

“Thank-you for taking the time to talk with me,” Chloe says, and I’m impressed by her calm demeanor as she surreptitiously turns off the recording device. “Now, if you don’t mind, my friend would like to ask for your professional opinion.”

“Of course,” he says, turning to us. “How can I help?”

“I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on these photographs,” Rachel says. She pulls them out of her bag, and spreads them on the table in front of Jefferson. It takes a moment for him to process what he’s seeing, and then his mask slips.

“What the fuck is this? Where did you get these?”

“Some pictures inspired by your work, of course. I found them in the bottom of my Mom’s closet; she’s the model, after all.”

“You’re Kate Marsh’s daughter?” he asks, his emotions back under control.

_Oh, so he_ does _remember names._ I comment. Rachel simply nods.

“Let me guess. The photographer was Max Caulfield?”

“Close, but no cigar. It was my Godmother, Victoria Chase. You should be proud – I have no doubt you’ve been following her career closely, and crediting your teaching with her success.” His expression tells us that we’ve hit a nerve.

“Funny you should mention Max, though,” Chloe adds, “since she’s _my_ Mom. Can you guess who Rachel and I are named for?” Jefferson is visibly paling.

“Now,” Rachel continues, as she and Chloe pack their bags, “I’m sure you’re going to do some research next time you get access to the Internet, and you’re going to find that Kate Santos is a best-selling author. Along with Victoria’s photography empire, that means we’ve got plenty of money. More than enough to, say, find out if you should ever be foolish enough to get yourself granted parole. And to arrange for someone to meet you after you get out, and… well, why spoil the surprise?”

We get up, and Chloe goes over to knock on the door, to let the guards know we’re ready to go. “Goodbye, Mr. Jefferson,” Rachel tells him. “Enjoy the rest of your stay here.”

* * *

###### Lisbeth

“That was _awesome_ ,” I say once we’re back in the car, “did you see the look on his face?”

“Like someone just made him suck on a truckload of lemons,” Rachel replies with a grin.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he bought your story,” Dawn adds.

“Thing is,” says Chloe, “I’m not a hundred percent sure that Victoria _wouldn’t_ pull something like that.”

Rachel thinks for a moment. “You know what, neither am I – although Mom would _not_ be happy if she ever found out.”

The drive round to Oregon State Hospital only takes a few minutes. Again, it takes us a good long time to get in, even though our visit was pre-arranged. We’re led to a waiting area, and told that someone will be along in a few minutes to take us to the interview room.

“Okay, you two are up now,” Chloe says, and hands over control. I try to summon up as much of nineteen-year-old Chloe Price as I can, and I can see Dawn doing something similar. Her features seem to change slightly, to an expression that makes her look more like her old self; even her posture shifts.

“You ready to do this?” she asks, with a little bit of a swagger.

“Hella ready,” I tell her.

It’s another couple of minutes before an orderly comes to escort us to a room that looks very much like the one in the prison where we met Jefferson. This time, though, there’s already someone waiting for us; Nathan Prescott, a pair of handcuffs attaching him to a metal bar on the table. “Just a precaution,” the orderly says. “You have half an hour; knock on the door if you need to leave early.” He turns, and exits the room.

“Who the fuck are you?” Nathan asks.

“Hey, Prescott, long time, no see,” I say, unbuttoning my jacket to reveal a replica of my old skull T-shirt underneath. Dawn sheds her coat; like me, she got changed in the car, and is now wearing an outfit identical the one she had on the day she died. She tucks her hair back to reveal the feather earring.

“Hello, Nathan,” she says softly, almost seductively.

He lurches back, straining at the cuffs. “No way! You’re dead, both of you. I saw you die!”

“Yeah, I think it was something to do with the gun you were pointing at me,” I tell him, my voice dripping sarcasm.

“Shit, shit, shit. Calm down, Nathan.” He’s talking to himself now. “This isn’t real. People don’t just come back from the dead.”

“Oh, I think you know that all kinds of weird shit happens in Arcadia Bay,” Dawn points out. “Like the storm; the Prescott family seems to know all about that. Well, it turns out that not everybody who dies there _stays_ dead. Some of us get to come back and haunt you.”

“No, no, no!” Nathan is wild-eyed and frantic, and starts clawing at the bar his cuffs are attached to, as if he can rip it out of the table. I take an involuntary step back. A moment later, three orderlies burst into the room; obviously someone was watching. One of them escorts us out while the others try to calm Nathan down.

“What the hell happened?” he asks.

“I have no idea,” I quickly ad-lib. “We’d only been in there a few moments when he started ranting about how he reminded us of some dead girls. That was seriously fucking creepy, I can tell you.”

He looks at us suspiciously, but shrugs it off as he buzzes us out to the reception area. We don’t hang around, and head back to our rental car before someone more senior comes along and starts asking awkward questions. We sit in silence as Rachel drives us away; I was expecting to have a sense of victory, like after we pwned Jefferson, but instead I just feel empty.

_You okay?_ Chloe asks me.

_No, not really,_ I reply.

_You wanna share it with the group?_

_Not particularly, but…_

Dawn beats me to it. “What we just did was wrong.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Shit, seeing Nathan like that… I actually feel sorry for him.”

“You still sound angry,” Rachel observes.

“Yeah, but not at Nathan, not any more. He may have pulled the trigger and,” I glance at Dawn, “pushed the plunger, but he’s not the only one responsible.”

“Exactly. Jefferson found someone vulnerable, and took advantage of him, manipulated him into doing his dirty work. Without Jefferson, Nathan would never have been put in a position to harm either of us. I don’t feel _any_ remorse for what we did to _him_.”

“You know who else I blame?” I ask. “ _Sean_ Prescott. I don’t think I ever told you this, but when you were in hospital after Damon stabbed you, Nathan was there as well. I overhead one of the doctors talking to Sean, telling him that Nathan needed serious psychiatric help, but Sean was adamant that it was all ‘made up problems’ and refused to allow them to treat him. If that fucker had actually been a decent father, and got the son the help he needed, then Nathan would probably never have ended up working with Jefferson, and the two of us might still be alive. ‘In our own bodies’ alive, I mean.”

“I’m still glad he’s locked up, though,” Dawn says. “He just didn’t deserve having us… trigger a psychotic break, or whatever that was.”

We drive quietly for a couple of minutes, while I sum up the courage to make a confession. “Thing is, there but for the grace of Max go I. We had a long talk over the holidays, about everything that happened during her week in that other timeline. She told me that… that I shot Frank.”

Dawn glances at me. “Shit.”

“Yeah. I mean, she rewound it straight away, and it’s not the same as Nathan shooting me, but it wasn’t so very different, either. Makes it harder to judge him.”

It’s another few minutes before Chloe finally says, “maybe it’s best if we never talk about this again.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” agrees Rachel. “I _certainly_ wasn’t planning on mentioning it to the Moms.”

I can feel Chloe shudder. “No indeed; I can just imagine Kate’s reaction: ‘I understand why you felt the need to do that, but I am so very disappointed in you.’”

Rachel flinches. “Exactly. Mama’s cold anger could be scary, even after I realized she was all bark and no bite, but Mom’s disappointment would just reduce me to tears _every single time_.”

None of us have any reply to that. We don’t speak again, other than to grab some drive-through on our way to the hotel. We eat, shower, and then head straight to bed. With neither couple in the mood for private time, we just curl up together, all four of us, each taking comfort in the others’ presence. With Rachel’s arms wrapped around my body, and Chloe’s thoughts embracing my mind, I feel myself calming, the unpleasant memories receding. We exchange gentle touches, both physical and mental, reassuring ourselves. And then, one by one, we fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's somewhere between two and four chapters left to go, depending on how long the remaining segments end up being, and how best they fit together. I'll try to stick to a bi-weekly release schedule, although there's another _Missing Piece_ to slot in as well.


	5. Patience is a Virtue

###### Dawn

It’s been more than a year since we moved into our new home, and it’s been the happiest time of my life… or my afterlife. It turns out that actually staying awake through all of Rachel’s lectures paid off, and I can not only follow what she’s doing at work, but even help her out. A few times, when she hasn’t gotten much sleep due to illness – or Chloe – I’ve filled in for Rachel while she took a back seat; it helps that I can do a pretty decent imitation of her voice now. At home, things are even more relaxed, with all four of us taking turns at cooking and chores. Chloe and Lisbeth, like Rachel and I, understand each other so well that we can smoothly carry on four-way conversations without missing a beat. It’s awesome, and I’ve never been so fucking happy in my life. I don’t think any of us have.

For me, Lisbeth is the biggest cause of that. We had a bit of a rough patch after I confessed the sins of my old life; it turned out to hit her harder than she thought it would, but when the dust settled, our relationship was all the stronger for it. Sure, I still wish I could go back and change things, so we could have had those years together; being truly happy, instead of spending so much time just pretending to be. Now, though, all of that is in the past. Now, we have a life together, albeit an unusual one. Rachel and Chloe have been awesome about sharing themselves with us, generously giving up their time together so that we can have date nights and a sex life.

Perhaps I should be concerned that my happiness is tied so tightly to not one, but three other people; if Rachel and Chloe were to break up, that would be the end for Lisbeth and me, too. But, I can _feel_ Rachel’s love for Chloe, burning brightly from every corner of her consciousness – along with her unwavering certainty that Chloe feels the same way about her. There’s no doubt in her mind that they’ll be spending the rest of their lives together, and that means that I can spend the rest of _my_ life with the woman _I_ love.

* * *

###### Lisbeth

It’s Dawn and Rachel’s birthday, and we’re having a quiet meal at home; we’ll be going out with friends at the weekend. I can feel Chloe nervously fingering the box in our pocket. _Stop that,_ I tell her. I sense an apologetic thought come from her, then she puts her hand back on the table and finishes up her dessert. I can feel her nervousness rising as she clears the dishes away, then returns to the table and rests her left hand on Rachel’s.

“I feel like I’ve known you my entire life,” she begins, “first as surrogate family, and then, slowly, as something more. I always looked eagerly forward to when I’d next be able to spend time with you, and it’s a constant source of joy that I get to come home to you every night. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love you, and I fall more in love with you every day.”

“Dawn, my Angel,” I continue, “you saved me from my worst impulses after Dad died and Max left. I was easy to fall in love with you, even if it wasn’t easy _being_ in love with you back then. That’s changed since we were given our strange second chance at life. I may not have my own body any more, but somehow I’ve never been happier, and I can’t imagine my life without you.”

“Nor I without you,” Chloe adds, reaching into her pocket. “Rachel, Dawn,” she opens the box, revealing the ring we picked out together, “will you marry us?”

There’s surprise on Rachel’s face, and I can almost see their private conversation before she breaks into a broad smile. “Yes, we will. Of course we will!” Chloe slips the ring onto her finger and gets up, gently pulling Rachel after her, and then we’re kissing. I’m not sure which of us started it, and for a while, I’m not sure whether it’s me or Chloe doing the kissing. We’ve not really kissed this passionately before when both Chloe and I were both awake, trying to keep the more intimate parts of our relationships separate.

As Rachel tugs us towards the bedroom, I hear Chloe ask me, _would you mind?_

_Of course not; have fun!_ I tell her, then will myself to sleep.

* * *

###### Dawn

Rachel and Chloe’s wedding, when it finally happens, isn’t a completely overblown affair; despite the fact that Kate and Tori insisted on footing the bill. They eventually accepted the services of a wedding planner after Tori – rather caustically – pointed out that they’d been engaged for almost five years, and still hadn’t gotten around to setting a date. In fairness, what with Chloe working cop hours – which only got worse after she earned her detective’s badge – and Rachel writing her first couple of novels in addition to a full-time job at one of the university libraries, none of us have had much energy left to think about it. Especially not when we’ve been making time for two separate love lives.

The one real extravagance the brides agreed to was the location: the Peninsula hotel on the Magnificent Mile, which is hosting both the ceremony and the reception. They waved off numerous of the planner’s suggestions, which they saw as either having obviously been passed on from Tori, or her own gratuitous bill-padding. Rachel ended up calling her parents and telling Tori that if she was so determined to spend money on this wedding, she could damn well offer to pay for the guests’ hotel rooms and air fares. Kate promptly declared that to be an excellent idea, which had the desired effect of getting Tori to butt out.

It’s not going to be a religious ceremony, but the preacher from the progressive church Rachel goes to volunteered as celebrant – if only in a civil capacity. Tori and Max fill the roles of fathers of the brides, and Rachel made the rather unconventional choice of having her beloved aunt Ruth as her Matron of Honor. The E’s, of course, are her bridesmaids. If she’s upset that only one of her sets of grandparents are here, I haven’t detected any sign of it.

I sit in the back of Rachel’s mind as she walks up the aisle towards Chloe, who looks unbearably hot in her dress uniform. She certainly looks more comfortable in it than Bill, her partner, who was the first and only choice for her Best Man. She’s openly gaping at Rachel’s dress, because okay, maybe there were _two_ things that money got splurged on. Tori came up personally to help us pick it out, and it’s quite the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.

Later, after a delicious meal, we sit back to enjoy the speeches. I know from the many times we’ve had him over for dinner that Bill doesn’t just _think_ he’s funny, he actually _is_ hilarious. While his roasting of Chloe isn’t exactly gentle, it’s infused with obvious affection. Tori’s ‘Father of the Bride’ speech puts the crosshairs on Rachel with her usual acerbic wit, but she’s actually tearing up by the end of it. Finally, Chloe squeezes our hand and gets up. She starts by thanking and giving gifts to the various members of the wedding party – the one thing we did actually mange to pay for – before turning her attention to Rachel.

“I’ve been waiting for this day since I was only a few years old. For as long as I’ve known what weddings are, I’ve known that it was Rachel who I’d marry someday. Loving her is like breathing; I’ve done it for as long as I can remember, and I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. I guess that’s why I was okay with our extended engagement; if this was inevitable, then the timing wasn’t important. I already had Rachel in my heart, and in my life, and in my arms.”

“And in your bed!” calls some anonymous voice from the back.

Chloe takes it in her stride, feigning affront. “How could you suggest such a thing? Rachel’s Mom would be scandalized!”

“I most certainly would,” Kate says, her voice heavy with sarcasm. There’s a scattering of laughter.

“Hey, I only promised that I wouldn’t sleep with any _men_ before I got married,” Rachel interjects.

Kate shares a look with Ruth, before remarking dryly, “that’s what _she_ said.” This time, the laughter is rather more widespread.

“Okay, I think it’s time to wrap this up,” says Chloe. “Thank you all for coming, you’ve been a wonderful audience, and… enjoy the party!”

After that, Rachel and Chloe spend an hour or two making the rounds, spending a few minutes talking to each of the guests, many of whom they haven’t seen in a long time. Extended family, school friends from New York and Philadelphia – even a couple from Blackwell – as well as some folks they met here in Chicago who’ve since left town. After a freshening-up break, where the brides are accompanied by Kate and Max, to make sure that they didn’t ‘get carried away,’ we head back downstairs for the evening shindig.

This has a more extended guest list, thrown open to work colleagues and friends they aren’t as close to. It does mean that Chloe has a bunch of off-duty cops slapping her on the back, and making lewd suggestions about what she should be doing later in the evening. Rachel, on the other hand, has a group of fellow librarians giving her erudite suggestions as to what she might want to do later in the evening, complete with citations.

There’s a live band, although Kate sings the song for their first dance. It’s a tradition going back to Max and Dana’s wedding, but Rachel and Chloe have no intention of replicating the dance routine they did. We’re also hoping to avoid any of the behind-the-scenes drama we’ve been told happened at Kate’s wedding. A couple of hours, and numerous partners later, I feel a tap on my shoulder, and instinctively turn around. “May I have this dance?” Lisbeth enquires. It’s only when I hear her voice that I realize Rachel has temporarily relinquished control; I presume it’s something she and Chloe planned, and I send her silent thanks as I take Lisbeth into my arms.

Shortly after that, there’s a buffet dinner, and then the cutting of the wedding cake. Eventually the two brides make their goodbyes and head up to their suite. _I guess it’s time for me to be going,_ I tell Rachel. _Thanks for letting us share your special day, but you’ll want to have some privacy for your special_ night.

_Thanks, Dawn, talk to you tomorrow._

_Actually… that’s something Lisbeth and I discussed. A little wedding gift, if you like_

_Huh?_

_Don’t wake me up ’til the honeymoon’s over,_ I tell her, then fall asleep.

* * *

###### Lisbeth

Our second wedding ceremony is far smaller and simpler than the first; just immediate family, out at the cabin. For some reason, we decided on the dress code while watching a bunch of old Jane Austen dramas, so we’re all in simple empire-waisted dresses as we gather in the shade of the old oak tree. With only eight of us there, we eschew most of the usual rituals, and simply stand at the front, hand in hand, with our family in a rough semicircle behind us.

Kate is our celebrant; as far as the rest of the world is concerned, we’re already married, so we don’t need anyone official. She leads Dawn and I through the abbreviated ceremony, we say our vows, and Kate pronounces us wife and wife. I hear Chloe cheering in the back of my head as we share our first kiss as married women. It means a lot that they did this for us – not just Chloe and Rachel, but their mothers and sisters too. They’ve never made Dawn and me feel like anything less than a part of their family, and this is just the latest example of the lengths they’ll go to to accommodate our… special circumstances.

Since it’s just family, we don’t have a formal dinner with immaculately plated food and boring speeches. Instead, we spread some blankets down by the side of the lake and have a picnic that lasts all afternoon. That gives Dawn and I plenty of time to have long talks with everyone; catching up on their lives and thanking them for making this happen. In the evening, we have gentle music and dancing on the veranda, albeit with some good-natured complaining from the E’s that they don’t have their boyfriends there to dance with.

Later that night, as I’m leading Dawn up to bed, Chloe says her goodbye. _So, Rachel and I are going to return the favor you did us, and switch off for the whole of your honeymoon._

_You don’t need to do that,_ I tell her. A single evening and night is the longest she’s ever left me alone in control before.

_Yes, we do,_ she replies. _We didn’t realize until_ you _did it just how much Rachel and I needed that time alone. Don’t get me wrong, we honestly love having you two around, but… well, you’ll see how good it is to have a few uninterrupted days._

_If you’re sure, then… thank-you._

_We’re sure. Have an awesome time!_ she says, and then she’s gone.

“I take it Chloe just told you we’re on our own for a week,” Dawn says when we get into our bedroom.

“Yeah,” I confirm. Then, struggling to keep a straight face, “and _we_ should probably get some sleep too. We have an early flight tomorrow.”

Dawn simply raises an eyebrow. “Riiight,” she drawls as she steps towards me. Then, her lips find mine, and we’re done with conversation.

After all, we can sleep in the plane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended reading order: [Chapter Seventeen](/works/14307216/chapters/42863333) of _Missing Pieces_.
> 
> Tentative release schedule for the next four weeks is: Missing Pieces #17, Pieced Together #6, Pieced Together #7, Missing Pieces #18 (although the last two might get pushed back a week.)


	6. Apparently She Had a VERY Good Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a day late; I was busy yesterday, going on a march with a million or two of my friends.
> 
> In case you hadn't guessed from the title, this chapter contains smut.

###### Lisbeth

The change begins, naturally enough, while I have my face buried between Dawn’s thighs. “Oh, Lisbeth, that feels so good,” she moans. I smile against her as my tongue dances around her clit; I can tell she’s getting close.

“Faster, Chloe, please!” she pants, and I freeze. That’s not my name any more. That wasn’t _my_ wife’s voice. “Don’t stop!” Rachel whines.

“Please don’t,” Dawn adds, a hint of desperation in her voice. Deciding that asking what the fuck is going on can wait, I comply. It seems like a matter of seconds before they come, long and loud; I can’t tell whose voice the wordless cry is in. The incredible sensation of their pussy pulsing against my mouth seems to go on forever. It’s only when that – and the full body shaking – finally subsides, that I reluctantly detach my lips from theirs and crawl up to collapse beside them, breathing heavily.

“Wow,” Dawn says at last, “that was _incredible_.”

“Yeah,” Rachel adds, “either I’ve _seriously_ overestimated how good Chloe is in bed, or there was something else going on there.”

“Definitely something else,” says Dawn. “It was like… I was feeling your orgasm as well as mine, both at the same time, and they just… multiplied.”

“That’s what I felt, too.” Rachel pauses, an embarrassed expression in her face. “Look, I’m really sorry for intruding; I swear I went to sleep before you went on your date. When I came to, I just assumed it was tomorrow morning and it was Chloe waking me up with cunnilingus; it wouldn’t exactly be the fist time she’s done that.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’m not exactly broken up at having given two women simultaneous mind-blowing orgasms. But… we should probably tell Chloe what happened.”

Rachel nods. “Yes, you should wake her up.” I reach to the corner of my mind where I can feel her sleeping, and send a mental probe. A few seconds later, I can feel her settling into control.

She licks her lips. _Why does my mouth still taste of pussy – not that I’m complaining – and why are you waking me up when I feel so horny that clearly you’re aching for Dawn to reciprocate?_

_Somehow Rachel woke up while I was going down on Dawn, and they had this explosive shared orgasm thing; we thought you should know what happened,_ I reply.

“So… that sounds strange,” she says out loud.

“But a good strange,” says Dawn.

“A _very_ good strange,” agrees Rachel. “Well, except for the whole invasion of privacy thing.”

“Given the results, I’m really not going to get upset about that,” Dawn reassures her.

“Me neither,” I say, “but Chloe, how do you feel about the fact that I just got your wife off?”

“I’m… surprisingly okay with it – provided y’all don’t mind me returning the favor.”

There’s a slight hesitation that tells me they’re having a silent conversation, before Rachel responds, “you may need to give us a little time to recover first.”

“That’s fine, I was kinda interested in being on the receiving end,” Chloe says. _Uh… provided that’s okay with you?_

_It’s_ hella _okay with me._

“Well, that only seems fair,” says Rachel.

“But… which of us do you want to do it?” asks Dawn.

“Um, I rather like the idea of not knowing,” I admit.

“Then we shall grant your wish,” says Rachel… or maybe Dawn; I’m honestly not sure. And then they’re kissing us, and I no longer care. Their mouth trails across our cheek and finds our neck, nibbling. When they wrap their lips our nipple and suck, before gently grazing it with their teeth, I’m not sure whether it’s Chloe or I who gasps.

I know it’s me who lets out a whimper of frustration when their hand moves too slowly up our inner thigh, but it’s Chloe who mutters, “dammit, this is not the moment to take your time!” Our lover responds by sliding two fingers straight into our sopping wet pussy, and we all moan.

Things progress rapidly after that. One of those fingers soon finds our G-spot, their thumb slides up to rub circles around our clit, and their lips, tongue and teeth continue their assault on our breasts. I can feel the barrier between Chloe’s consciousness and my own weakening as our climax approaches, and as a sharp bite sends us crashing over the edge, it seems to vanish altogether. As our minds merge, it’s like every physical sensation is doubled in a wave of pure pleasure that feels like it might never end.

Some time later, I emerge from the post-orgasmic haze to see Rachel’s face looking down at us with a very smug smile. “Wow!” is all I can manage.

“Yeah,” says Chloe, equally eloquent. That tells me that our minds have separated again. “I see what you mean,” she adds.

“So… what now?” asks Rachel as she collapses on the bed beside us.

“Not _right_ now,” Dawn clarifies, “but what do we do about our sex lives now that we know this can happen.”

We all think on that, and it’s Rachel who breaks the silence. “No offense, but I think there are still times when I’m going to want my privacy, when it’s lovemaking that’s as much about the emotional connection as it is the physical one. Times like that, a woman wants to be alone with her wife.”

I can feel Chloe nodding before she says, “I get that. On the other hand, if I’m feeling horny… I’m going to want to experience sex like we did today, every fucking time.”

“I am _so_ not going to argue with that,” agrees Dawn.

“In that case, I guess that when things are heading for sexytimes, we let the couple in charge decide whether they want to ask for privacy, or invite the other couple to join,” I suggest. “I think that’s a plan we can all respect.”

“I second that,” says Dawn.

“Thirded,” says Chloe.

“Then we’re agreed,” concludes Rachel. “And as for what _now_ , well, I suspect that Chloe and Dawn would both like a turn at running the show…”

* * *

###### Dawn

It’s always strange to be back in Arcadia Bay, and it never seems like there’s a happy reason for us to be here any more. Last year, it was for the funeral of Kate’s Mom; this time, it was for Joyce’s. Lisbeth took it hard, of course; doubly so because only our family know that she’s still alive, that Joyce was her mother. To the rest of the world, she was just the daughter of an old family friend who’s there to support her Mom.

We talked about this on the drive over, second-guessing our decision not to tell our parents that we’re back. At the time, we decided that there was too much risk of them not believing us, that we’d be ripping open old wounds for nothing. They’d all had a quarter century to get closure with their daughters being gone; it seemed like it would be selfish to disrupt that for Lisbeth and me to get… what?

Still, Lisbeth has been regretting that choice ever since we got the news. Not, perhaps, wishing that she’d told Joyce the truth, but at least done something to let her know that, no matter their differences those last few years, Chloe had loved her. Max reassured her that she’d done exactly that, both at Chloe’s funeral, and again several years later, at one of her infrequent visits back here. Was that enough for Lisbeth? Probably not, but it was all we had to offer her.

I saw my own mother at the funeral, even talked to her for a while. She remembered meeting Kate way back when they came for a Blackwell reunion, when Rachel was just a kid. She smiled when she saw that we were wearing my old feather earring, and told us how she’d given it to Kate after hearing that she’d named her daughter after me. I know that I hurt her by insisting on meeting Sera; things were never quite the same between us after that. I wish I could have told her back then that _she_ was always my Mom, not that woman who gave birth to me.

Unlike Lisbeth, I still had time to remedy that. I forged an unfinished and unsent letter from myself, telling her that I’d always loved her, that I wanted to fix things between us but could never figure out how. My handwriting has barely changed, and we soaked the letter in tea to age it. Lisbeth decided to write one as well, an apology; she had a massive falling out with my parents over the search for me. Chloe was convinced that I would never have left town without her, so when they moved down to LA to continue the search there, on the assumption that I’d run away, she saw that as them giving up – and told them exactly what she thought of them.

I give the two letters my mother with the explanation that they were in a box of Chloe’s things that had been passed from Joyce, to Max, and then to us. “Aunt Max told us that Joyce hadn’t wanted to read the letter in there, and neither had she,” I tell her. “We didn’t until a few days ago, and found one that might have given her some comfort. I hope that these can for you.” She thanks me, and moves on to talk to someone else. While the physical letters may be fake, the emotions they express are entirely real. It felt… cathartic to write them down, and I hope that they’ll give Mom some closure too.

* * *

I’m lying in a cheap motel bed with Chloe. Rachel did most of the driving to get us here, so she’s already asleep. Chloe told me that Lisbeth retreated into her shell as soon as we left the wake, and no amount of gentle nudges will bring her out of it. I really wish that I could talk to her, hold her. Joyce may not have been my Mom, but that doesn’t been I’m not hurting. I spent a lot of time at her house over the last two or three years of my first life, when things were strained at home. I honestly wonder if I had a closer relationship with Joyce than Chloe did, what with all the rage she had about David’s presence in her life.

I don’t even realize that I’m crying until Chloe reaches up to wipe the tears from my cheek. “I’m sorry, sweetie, Lisbeth seems to have forgotten that you were close to Joyce too.” Instinctively, I move closer to her, and she pulls me into the arms. The familiar feel of her body against mine is intensely comforting, and I snuggle in even closer, sighing happily as I bury my face in her neck. The kiss, when it happens, is soft and tender, loving, and exactly what I need. I know that this is probably breaking our unspoken agreement; a level of intimacy that shouldn’t be happening when both our wives are asleep, but I’m feeling a little bit abandoned by Lisbeth, so I push those thoughts aside.

Our kisses, Chloe’s gentle caresses, and the feel of her skin under my hands are a balm for my soul. When her body arches against me as I touch her ass and thigh, that comforts me too, and it’s not entirely accidental where my fingertips graze as I slide my hand back up. The wetness I find there, and the needy moan in my ear, break down my last inhibitions. Gently, I roll Chloe onto her back, and lean down to kiss her. I slip one finger inside her briefly to lubricate it, then slide it up to find her clit. I’ve made love to Chloe enough times – albeit with Rachel in the back of my head, and Lisbeth in the back of hers – to know how to get her off like this, and I don’t think either of us wants or needs more.

When Chloe comes undone a few minutes later, her moans are muffled against my mouth. Once she gets her breath back, she kisses me firmly and rolls us over. Her hand finds my pussy, and I quickly give in to the sensations, allowing her to lead me to the release I haven’t realized how badly I need. I wait until my climax is over, and we’ve shared some post-orgasmic kisses, before I look her in the eyes and tell her, “I love you, Chloe Ward.” It seems incredibly important that she knows it comes from the heart, that I know exactly who I’m saying it to, that it isn’t just some heat-of-the-moment post-coital declaration.

I can’t see much in the dim light of the motel room, but I think I can make out a smile. “I love you too, Dawn.” She lies on her side next to me, wrapping an arm around me, and I happily slip into the role of the little spoon. It barely takes any time at all for me to fall asleep.

* * *

###### Lisbeth

I wake up the morning after Mom’s wake having slept like, well, like the dead. My mind is clearer, and I feel like maybe I was rather selfish in hiding away last night. In hindsight, I can see that Dawn needed me, and the way I’m protectively holding her bears that out. I free my hand to reach up and scratch my nose – a nervous tic I’ve picked up from Chloe – and stop cold when I detect the unmistakable scent of sex. I _thought_ that Rachel crashed out at the same time as I did, but I admit that I wasn’t really paying attention. I feel her stirring beside me. “Good morning,” I say, cautiously.

“Hey, Lisbeth,” says Rachel, “How’re you feeling?”

“Better, I was just… overwhelmed yesterday. How about you? I never did thank you for that epic shift at the wheel.”

She turns to face me, and smiles. “You’re welcome. Ten hours of uninterrupted sleep seems to have done the trick. We the only two awake?”

“Yeah.” Her answers tells me what _didn’t_ happen last night, and I’m trying to figure out how I feel about what I now assume _did_. “Look, not to be indelicate, but… my fingers smell of you.”

She raises an eyebrow and sniffs her own fingers. “I’ve been wondering when this was going to happen.”

I stare at her for a moment. “You’ve been _expecting_ that Dawn and Chloe were going to…” I’m not sure how to finish that. ‘Cheat on us’ somehow seems too harsh; ‘give in to temptation,’ perhaps?

“Or that you and I would,” Rachel says softly. And, in that moment, I suddenly want to. I surge forward, pulling her into a kiss. She responds eagerly, but gently pushes me back before things can go any further. “Now isn’t the time,” she tells me, “none of us would ever quite be sure that we weren’t doing it out of spite, or revenge.”

“It wouldn’t be,” I tell her, and it’s the truth, “but you’re right. We should talk to the others, find out what actually happened last night.” I shoot a mental probe at Chloe and, a moment later, I feel her waking up. _Good morning,_ I tell her, neutrally.

_Morning, Lisbeth… oh, God, I am_ so _sorry. Last night, I…_

_I know, Chloe, and… it’s okay, I think. Please, just tell me exactly what happened._

_Dawn was in a bad place. She was a lot more upset about Joyce that she’d been letting on, and she really needed you._ There’s a slightly accusatory tone to her mental voice that I can’t really argue with. _I couldn’t get you to respond, no matter what I tried, so in the end I comforted her myself. I didn’t intend for things to go as far as they did, but one thing led to another, and… dammit, Lisbeth, we’ve all gotten too mixed up together._

I know she’s right, and in that moment I realize that it’s _my_ behavior last night that I have a problem with, not Dawn’s or Chloe’s. _You’re right,_ I tell her. _I’m sorry for putting you in that position, and… thanks for taking care of Dawn._

_You’re welcome, but there’s one more thing you should know. I told Dawn that I love her last night, and she said it too. And, it wasn’t just empty words, for either of us._ Chloe drops the barriers between us and lets me see her emotions. I can feel her love for Dawn, right next to her love for Rachel; not as strong, perhaps, but just as true. It mirrors my own feelings, just as my love for Rachel mirrors hers. With that realization, the last semblance of hurt and anger melts away, and when I show Chloe how I’m feeling, we don’t need words to understand one another.

“I’m sorry,” says Dawn.

“Don’t be,” I tell her, “I’m the one who should be sorry. I know that in all honesty, you were closer to Mom those last couple of years than I was; I was too fucking angry about her letting David in, when I thought she should be mourning Dad forever.” I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have left you alone last night, and I’m glad that Chloe was there for you.”

“It did hurt,” she admits, “but no matter the state of your relationship with Joyce towards the end, she was still your mother, not one of mine. It’s not for me to tell you how to grieve.”

“One thing’s become clear, though,” says Chloe, taking over, “we can no longer pretend that our two relationships are as cleanly separated as they once were. It’s more like all four of us are in one polyamorous relationship, and maybe we should just acknowledge that.” _What do you think?_

_I think you’re right; I think we’ve been heading in this direction for a while now._

“We agree,” says Rachel after a brief pause, “assuming that we’re not talking about a complete end to private time, just that in the future it might be Lisbeth and me, or Chloe and Dawn.”

“Yup, that sounds about right,” Chloe agrees.

“Good; now, if you don’t mind, I’d quite like to go back to sleep,” Dawn says.

“Yeah, me too.”

A moment later, I’m alone with Rachel. “They did that deliberately, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, I think they did,” I reply, moving closer and brushing a few strands of hair off her face. “I do love you, you know, I just didn’t realize it until now.”

Tenderly, she kisses me. “I know what you mean. I thought I was just feeling Dawn’s emotions, but it’s not that; I love you too.” She pulls me into a longer, deeper kiss.

“Now,” I say, trailing my hand across her body to cup her breast, “where were we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended reading order: [Chapter Eighteen](/works/14307216/chapters/43280861) of _Missing Pieces_.
> 
>  
> 
> I'm hoping to have the last chapter of this up in a couple of weeks' time, and a bonus chapter of _Missing Pieces_ next weekend (the finale is taking a little linger than expected, with eleven viewpoint characters to fit in…)


	7. No Harm Ever Came from Reading a Book

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for being a day late, again. It turns out that taking a few days of work doesn't give me more time for writing, it means losing the regularly-scheduled writing time during my commute…

###### Lisbeth

For the next couple of years, things carry on much as before, except that there are four different kinds of private date night, instead of only two. Our home hums with a new level of happiness, as if there’d been some sort of tension in the air, and now it’s gone. We’ve all become more physically affectionate, because it no longer matters who’s in control of the other body just then; it’s sure to be someone we’re in love with.

Chloe and I become closer intertwined at work, as well, with me spending more time as ‘Detective Ward.’ It turns out that there is a downside to having two of us sharing a body – we end up having to train a bit harder than everyone else. Whilst aerobic exercise works for both of us, and muscle memory does seem to carry over, there’s some amount of practice that can only be done when we’re in control of a body, and we need to do that twice between us. When it comes to a split-second, life-or-death situation, there won’t be time for us to discuss what to do; whoever is in control will need to be ready to handle it.

This time, things don’t quite play out like that. Chloe is barreling down an alley in pursuit of a suspect, a few yards behind Bill. In the back seat, I have a little more focus on our surroundings, so I’m the one who catches an odd reflection out of the corner of our eye, and the faint _snickt_ of a gun being cocked. Acting on pure instinct, I wrench control away from Chloe and throw us behind a dumpster. She barely has time to start thinking _wha…?_ when the bullet tears through our upper arm and we crash into hiding.

_Fuck! If you hadn’t…_

_I know._

_I’d be dead right now._

_So would I._ Two more shots ring out, one pinging off the dumpster, the other hitting the ground barely an inch from our foot; Chloe hurriedly pulls it in. _And we’re not safe yet._

_Where is that bastard?_ I send her an image of a doorway further down the alley where the reflected light came from. She shifts position towards the corner of the dumpster. _Fuck, that hurts. I think you’re going to need to do this._ I only had control for a moment, so it was Chloe who took the brunt of the pain and shock. From past experience, we know that even if I take over, it’ll still be more muted, leaving me better able to focus.

I poke our head briefly around the corner, enough to confirm the location of the shooter. He’s exactly where I thought he was, but the doorway gives him perfect cover from anyone coming the other way. Any hope of Bill coming to our rescue is quashed; he would be more likely to make _himself_ a sitting duck – in fact, the shooter looks to be setting himself up to take advantage of exactly that. I pull back just as he looks my away again, and another shot hits the side of the dumpster.

Looking around, I spot a sturdy-looking crate and pull it over. After testing to make sure it will take our weight, I climb into a crouch on top of it. _You can do this_ , Chloe encourages me. I take a deep breath, stand up, and squeeze off three shots before ducking back down. _I think you got him._ Carefully, I take another look, and see the shooter sprawled on the ground. I also see Bill on the opposite side of the alley, getting up off a pile of garbage underneath a window that I’m pretty sure wasn’t broken before. In the distance, I hear the sweet sound of approaching sirens.

I hurry over to check on my target, relieved to find he’s still breathing. He may have been trying to kill me, but I had no particular desire to return the favor; I don’t need that on my conscience. There’s a lot of blood, so I just hope an ambulance gets here fast.

“You okay?” Bill asks, concern on his face when he sees my arm.

“It’s only a flesh wound,” I tell him. Imitating Chloe’s voice is second nature to me now. “You get our man?”

“Cuffed to a fence up there.” He gestures vaguely.

“Good.” I’m feeling a little light-headed. “I’m going to… sit down for a bit now.” I just about manage to do that before I tumble into darkness.

* * *

###### Dawn

There are five missed calls from Bill on our phone when we finally get to take our break, and that’s enough to strike fear into our heart. I’m not sure whether it’s Rachel or me who stabs the button to call him back.

“Chloe’s fine,” are the first words he says, and immediately we’re breathing easier. “She’s been a little bit… shot, but it’s just a flesh wound – her words – and she’s going to make a full and quick recovery.”

“Chloe’s been _shot?_ ” Rachel says.

Bill gives us the whole story, as best he knows it, then tells us which hospital Chloe’s in, and how to find her room. Rachel only has to say the same three words to her boss, and she’s telling us to go. Half an hour later, we’re at our wives’ bedside.

“Hey, sweetie,” Chloe says weakly, reaching out her good arm. I take her hand, bend over to kiss her, then take the seat by the bed.

“How’re you feeling?”

“They have the _good_ drugs here,” Lisbeth tells us, glancing around to check we’re alone. “The pain’s hitting her harder than me.” I glance at the drip they’re hooked up to. “Just fluids,” she reassures us. “We lost some blood, and may have passed out for a few minutes, but the docs got us all fixed up.” We talk some more, with Chloe interjecting occasionally, and then they drift off to sleep. We pop out to get some coffee, and find Bill still waiting there.

“Hey, thanks for looking after Chloe,” Rachel tells him.

“Of course,” that goes without saying. “Besides, she probably saved my life today.”

I blink at that. “You okay?”

“A couple of bruises from ducking too fast, but if Chloe hadn’t taken the shooter out when she did, I wouldn’t have been able to dodge his next bullet.”

“Is he…?”

“Still in surgery, last I heard.” I can tell from his expression that he knows why we’re asking, and that his concern isn’t for the shooter either. “Look, I need to head back to the station, but I’ll stop by later.”

“Of course,” we give him a quick hug. Not much later, armed with a cup of mediocre coffee, we head back to Chloe’s room to wait for her to wake up. A few hours after that, I’m typing away on our tablet, editing some scenes from our next book, when Dana and Max arrive. We’re immediately pulled into a three-way hug.

“How are they?” Max asks.

“A hole in their arm and some blood loss, but nothing that fluids and some time won’t heal.”

“What about you two?” asks Dana.

“Exhausted,” I admit, “and Rachel’s taking a nap right now.”

“Get some rest. We’ll watch over them.”

“Um, okay, yeah, thanks.” I give Chloe’s hand one last squeeze, then settle into one of the other chairs and drape my coat over myself.

* * *

###### Lisbeth

I’m not sure how late it is when I wake up. I check on Chloe, and find her still asleep; or asleep again, at any rate – my full belly tells me that she must have been awake for a while earlier than me. There’s still a dull, throbbing ache in my arm, but the drugs are keeping it under control. I hope my eyes, and see my… Chloe’s parents are there. “What up, Bat-Max?”

I’m immediately enveloped in a bear-hug. “Thank-you,” she whispers in my ear, “for saving my daughter.”

“Yeah, well…” I shrug, embarrassed, then wince at the pain that brings on. “I figured that I owe you one for all those times you had to stop _me_ from getting shot. Plus, y’know, I’m not ready to do the whole ‘dead’ thing again just yet.”

Max smiles. “I’m really glad you’re okay; I just wish the two of you could have settled on a safer profession.”

“Hey, don’t blame me, that was all Chloe’s idea. I wanted us to be a drug kingpin, but noooo, she had to be on the right side of the law…”

Max laughs, quickly joined by Rachel and Dana, who adds, “still, I think we’d both be happier if you were doing something less dangerous, like your wives. Nobody ever got shot by a book.”

“Maybe not,” says Rachel, “although I’d have to do some research to confirm that theory – but I did meet a guy at a conference one who broke fifteen bones when a heavy bookshelf toppled onto him. I think it was that hardback editions of _A Song of Ice and Fire_ that did the real damage.” I laugh, and she comes over to give me a kiss. Neither Max nor Dana comment on the fact that it’s Rachel and Lisbeth kissing, not one of the married couples. Either they don’t realize the implication, or were way ahead of us in figuring that one out. My money’s on the latter.

“I’m sorry,” Dana say, shortly. “Please don’t think we’re questioning your vocation or seriously asking you to change. I just… got scared, I guess.” Max nods vigorously.

“I know, Dana,” I tell her, “and we understand.” It’s been a long time since I’ve thought of her as that girl I vaguely knew at school; she’s my second mother now, although I somehow doubt that Max is ever going to make that transition in my mind. After a brief silence, it becomes clear that nobody has any more to say on the matter, and I ask, “so, any news on when we get to go home?”

“Tomorrow, hopefully,” Rachel tells me. “And in answer to your next question, it’s going to be a little longer than that until you can get back on the job.”

“Actually, I’m in no great rush. There’s going to be a mountain of paperwork waiting for me over this, even if the guy I shot does pull through.”

“Bill already told Chloe this, but the guy’s out of surgery and stable. Looks like you’re going to have a trial to look forward to.”

“Oh, great; thanks for reminding me,” I grouse, but I can feel my eyelids drooping.

“Get some more rest,” Rachel suggests, kissing me again. “No point worrying about that right now.”

“Yeah…” That little encouragement is all I need to send me drifting off back to sleep.

* * *

###### Dawn

Chloe and Lisbeth, it turns out, aren’t really fans of enforced bed rest. They’re back to work in less than a week, even if they’re confined to desk duty at first. The trial is only the second of the ones they’ve been involved in that I actually attend, wanting to see the man who hurt the women I love put behind bars.

I’m not disappointed.

That night, we’re lying in bed together, enjoying some post-coital snuggling. “I’m very glad I’m still here,” Lisbeth says.

“How’d you mean?” Rachel asks, sleepily.

“One of the possible reasons I thought of for why Dawn and I are here is some sort of _Quantum Leap_ thing, that I had some specific reason for being here, to help Chloe.”

“And you wondered if saving me from being shot might be that thing?”

“Well, yeah.”

“I’m very glad we’ve disproved that theory,” I tell her. “I don’t think _any_ of us could bear to lose you.” I try not to think about how close Rachel and I came to losing _both_ of our loves.

“I gave up on wondering why you’re here a long time ago,” Chloe says, “but I’ll never stop being thankful that you are.”

“Ditto,” agrees Rachel.

“Maybe,” I tell my wife, “it’s time that we did too.”

* * *

More time passes, and our deliberate use of private time has dwindled to almost nothing; in fact, I’m pretty sure that in the last couple of years, the only old-style date nights we had were on our respective anniversaries. Most days, Rachel and I wake up together, go to sleep together, and spend all the time in-between sharing control of our body without either of us really having to think about it. Chloe and Lisbeth say it’s the same with them – and I’m not even sure which of them tells us that. I struggle a little to distinguish their voices these days, and our parents admit that they lost the ability to tell them apart years ago.

* * *

After all these years, it’s strange to wake up without another voice in the back of my head. Since we retired and started living life at a slower pace, things are different.

The change came so slowly that we almost didn’t notice. The telepathic link that once hummed with conversation gradually became quiet. It wasn’t that we weren’t communicating any more, but that we didn’t need to. We already knew what the other was thinking, because we were thinking the same thing. Identity became fluid; if we were no longer thinking separate thoughts, were we even separate people any more? And, if not, _who_ were we? The answer, it turns out, is simple.

* * *

###### Lisbeth

I am Chloe Mariko Ward, and I am Chloe ‘Lisbeth’ Price.

I am the woman who loves Rachel Santos, and I am the woman who loves Rachel Amber.

I am Chloe.

I am the woman who loves Rachel.

I am us.

I am me.

###### Dawn

I am Rachel Oriana Santos, and I am Rachel Dawn Amber.

I am the woman who loves Chloe Ward, and I am the woman who loves Chloe Price.

I am Rachel.

I am the woman who loves Chloe.

I am us.

I am me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we reach the end of this little story, even if it did race over the finish line a little. It's not quite the end for these characters, though, as they'll all be making an appearance in the final chapter of _Missing Pieces_.


End file.
